How to Maintain Your Hand-Painted Kitchen
A hand-painted kitchen is extremely durable, but you need to be careful during the first three to four weeks while the paint is curing.
When I finish hand painting a kitchen, people often say the same thing to me as I leave.
They say, “We’re looking forward to seeing you again next year to do some touch ups.” And they have big smiles on their faces.
I’m always shocked.
What are they planning to do with my kitchen in the meantime? Are they hosting a Six Nations fixture in it? Or the National Ploughing Championships or something? Is there a pet rhinoceros they’ve hidden from me?
You see, once the paint on your kitchen has cured, it is very, very robust stuff. It will last a good while. OK, it’s not going to withstand a sustained assault by a toddler with a screwdriver, but quite frankly you shouldn’t be giving your toddlers screwdrivers in the first place. But other than that, a hand-painted kitchen will hold up well to daily use for many years. No need to build a secondary kitchen for daily use, so you can keep your hand-painted one for special occasions. You can safely live and cook in it to your heart’s content.
A word of warning, though: it takes three to four weeks for the paint to cure. During this time you do have to be careful. Treat your kitchen like your own skin.
Things to banish from your kitchen during this period include:
• Toddlers (with or without screwdrivers)
• Clumsy family members (or limit them to spoons only)
• Rhinocerosessen (I think that’s the correct spelling)
After this initial three- to four-week spell, you can lift the kitchen’s exclusion zone status.
Clean your hand-painted kitchen with diluted bleach
Once the paint has cured, the best way to clean your kitchen’s painted surfaces is with diluted bleach:
50ml of bleach per litre of warm water
The first time someone told me this, I didn’t believe them. I mean: BLEACH! They might as well have suggested sandpaper. But I have tested the solution above on my own kitchen (when the wife wasn’t looking) and it does the job a treat.
If you need to clean a hand-painted surface during the first three to four weeks after your kitchen has been painted, then use nothing more than a damp cloth.
Does this mean your kitchen will never need a spruce up? No. Accidents happen. And happily, a hand-painted kitchen surface is often straightforward to fix if something does happen to it. (Provided you haven’t burned the place down to the ground or anything.) Also, sometimes people decide they would like to change the colour of their kitchen after a while.
So I do occasionally get to see my clients again. I always enjoy it when that happens. It’s particularly gratifying when I can confirm the toddler who was a screwdriver-wielding terror when I first painted the kitchen is now a teenager who refuses to ever set foot in the kitchen for fear of being asked to do the dishes.